British Olympic Association
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THE LEGACY OF A CULTURAL ELITE: THE BRITISH OLYMPIC ASSOCIATION O legado de uma elite cultural: a Associação Olímpica Britânica Dave Day1 Jana Stoklasa2 ABSTRACT Changes in the State’s attitudes towards intervention in elite sport, particularly its willingness to invest through the National Lottery after 1996, resulted in Britain rising from thirty-sixth in the Olympic table in 1996 to second place in 2016. Government involvement marked a turning point for many long-established British sporting traditions, and this paper examines a significant influence on these traditions, the British Olympic Association (BOA), and its propagation of amateurism, an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) generated by the cultural elites who formed and subsequently controlled the BOA. Cultural elites have the capacity to shape societal values through the application of their own principles, and their creation of an ICH is considered here through a case study that exposes the power relations that operate when considering heritage as a cultural transmission process. The authors highlight the functioning of an elitist circle, a ‘cultural heritage elite’, by exploring how a sporting aristocracy used their cultural power to impose their own hegemonic vision of how sport should be managed and played, resulting in a long-lasting ICH predicated on the principles of amateurism and the importance of the volunteer. This paper draws on a range of archives, including BOA records from the Olympic Study Centre in Lausanne, to illustrate the impact of this upper-class cultural elite on the development of Olympic sport in Britain and to demonstrate how they retained control for nearly a century before bureaucratic rationalization reduced their power and influence, although the authors also conclude that their legacy of class interests still resonates. Keywords: Intangible Cultural Heritage; Amateurism; British Olympic Association. RESUMO Mudanças nas atitudes estatais em relação à intervenção no esporte de elite, particularmente na sua disposição de investir na Loteria Nacional depois de 1996, fizeram com que a Grã-Bretanha subisse do trigésimo sexto lugar no ranking olímpico em 1996 para o segundo lugar em 2016. O envolvimento do governo marcou um ponto de virada para muitas tradições esportivas britânicas estabelecidas há muito tempo e este artigo se examina a influência significativa sobre essas tradições, a Associação Olímpica Britânica (BOA), e sua propagação do amadorismo, uma herança cultural intangível (ICH) gerada pelas elites culturais que formaram e subsequentemente 1 Professor in Sports History. Manchester Metropolitan University - UK. E-mail: [email protected]. ORCID: http://orcid. org/0000-0002-6511-1014. 2 Associate Researcher in History. Philosophical Faculty, Institute for the Teaching of Democracy. Leibniz University, Han- nover, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7994-5394. 9História: Questões & Debates. Curitiba v. 68, n. 37, p. 229-248 mês jul./dez. 2020. Universidade Federal do Paraná. ISSN: 2447-8261. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/his.v00i0.000000 D AY, Dave; STOKLASA, Jana. The legacy of a cultural elite: the British Olympic Association... 230 controlaram o BOA. As elites culturais possuem a capacidade de moldar os valores sociais por meio da aplicação de seus próprios princípios e a criação de uma ICH é considerada aqui por meio de um estudo de caso que expõe as relações de poder que operam quando se considera o patrimônio como um processo de transmissão cultural. Os autores destacam o funcionamento de um círculo elitista, uma “elite do patrimônio cultural”, explorando nas análises como uma aristocracia esportiva usou seu poder cultural para impor sua própria visão hegemônica de como o esporte deve ser gerenciado e jogado, resultando em uma longa duração de ICH predicada sobre os princípios do amadorismo e a importância do voluntário. Este artigo baseia-se em vários arquivos, incluindo os registros BOA e do Centro de Estudos Olímpicos de Lausanne, buscando ilustrar o impacto dessa elite cultural de classe alta no desenvolvimento do esporte olímpico na Grã-Bretanha, bem como demonstrar como eles mantiveram o controle por quase um século antes que a racionalização burocrática reduzisse seu poder e influência, embora os autores também concluíssem que seu legado de interesses de classe ainda ressoa. Palavras-chave:Patrimônio Cultural Imaterial; Amadorismo; Associação Olímpica Britânica. Introdução Sport is an example of culture, and as a contested sphere it is susceptible to the production of ideology and the core power relations of a society (HARGREAVES, 1986, 1987; GRUNEAU, 1983). This notion of sport as culture is intertwined with the development of broader perspectives surrounding the ‘cultural turn’ and acknowledging the inherently cultural nature of the sport makes it essential that researchers understand sport’s relation to the wider culture (CHANEY, 1994). There are socially determined and culturally specific conditions in which sport is established and developed in particular societies, and at particular times, so it is especially important that sports are analysed in the context of societal culture and power relations. The ’invention of tradition’ paradigm, for example, suggests that the continuities of national identity result from the artificial constructs of elite groups, imposed from above for the purpose of sustaining the established socio-political order (READMAN, 2005), and it seems that elites create collective memory guided by an ideology representing their interests (CZAJKOWSKI et al., 2016). Inevitably, therefore, although the way that sports are organized and played remains contested terrain, involving self-interested social groups and actors, they are always susceptible to the power of dominant groups (TOMLINSON et al., 2003). This process can be clearly illustrated by considering the nineteenth-century upper and middle-class interests who organized and structured their sport around their personal values and ambitions and left a sporting heritage that remained unchallenged for much of the twentieth century. The cultivation of that heritage was invariably undertaken by social elites operating in selected networks, such as the Olympic movement, through which they put into practice the presencing of the past as well as the forwarding of traditions’ (DAY; STOKLASA, 2019). The peculiar development of British sports participation at the Olympic Games can be directly attributable to the legacy left through the application of amateur values by an aristocratic elite that formed the British Olympic Association (BOA) at the start of the twentieth century. História: Questões & Debates. Curitiba v. 68, n. 37, p. 229-248 mês jul./dez. 2020. Universidade Federal do Paraná. ISSN: 2447-8261. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/his.v00i0.000000 D AY, Dave; STOKLASA, Jana. The legacy of a cultural elite: the British Olympic Association... 231 Keller suggests that ‘strategic elites’ are as old as the first organized human societies, and that, while there are variations in how these leading minorities have been selected, trained, and rewarded, recruitment through heredity is the most familiar. With the aristocracy, composed of families bound by kinship and wealth, a single stratum monopolizes the key social functions and represents a minority set above and apart from the rest of the population, with a special code of honour, etiquette, and outlook (KELLER, 2017). The argument in this paper is that, confident in their social and political status, a sporting aristocracy used their cultural power to marginalize other social groups and to impose their own hegemonic version of how the BOA should operate and the amateur values that it should espouse. The result was a long-lasting heritage in which the powerful aristocrat and the philosophy of amateurism remained a feature of the BOA throughout the twentieth century (DAY, 2012). The paper discusses the formation and development of the BOA, details the way amateurism informed British Olympic discourses for over a century and highlights the significant changes that occurred in the British sporting landscape following substantial government intervention in the late twentieth century. This signified a critical shift in influence from a cultural elite to a centralized bureaucracy, epitomized by the quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (‘quangos’) established to distribute funding and resource elite performance, such as Sport England, UK Sport, and the English Institute of Sport. At the 2008 Olympics, Britain finished fourth in the medal table, winning nineteen gold medals, marking a significant turnaround from 1996 when Britain finished thirty-sixth. The London Olympics in 2012 saw Britain move to third in the medal table and the 2016 Games witnessed further advances by the British team as it rose to second, marking the first time that a host nation from one Games had managed to improve its standings at a subsequent Olympics. This upwards trajectory can be primarily attributed to a change in the British State’s attitudes towards intervention in elite sport and to its willingness to invest heavily through the National Lottery. Since this funding stream began in 1997 more than 4,600 British athletes have benefited, resulting in the winning of 633 Olympic and Paralympic medals (UK SPORT: THE NATIONAL LOTTERY). The authors draw on a range of archives, including BOA records from the Olympic Study Centre in Lausanne, to illustrate the influence